Hand Tools

david weaverGeorge isn't similar to what you're describing. Figure everything you've ever made, and then decide that there is someone who could make it 8 times better and twice as fast. That would be George. It doesn't matter if it's refurbishing a machine, making a knife, making a dueling pistol (including all of the parts), or making or contributing to a random item for half a dozen presidents, the queen or Margaret Thatcher.

George is a maker's maker, and i know you like to make a lot of musical instruments, but George's (violins and violas) are in professional symphonies, and one of his "pistols with a few kit parts" as he puts it (as in, not his best work from soup to nuts) was purchased by one of the duponts. As with the top makers in general, he's connected. If someone asked you to fix an 18th century telescope that was broken, what would you do?

He's not the guy at the theater, he's Brando.

I agree with what you said, that Peters - well, we don't really know what he was capable of in its entirety, because he was operating within a business that had to produce. It tends not to be your absolute best.

The difference between most folks and George is that George is still a sponge for information, still full of ideas, but physically limited about 4 hours of work a day. He's accessible to us, and sometimes his opinion isn't wanted by people, even though he offers it only in the interest of getting people to do better work. Little of his work is online, and showing something like this:

..makes it seem like he's a luthier (and he is), but luthiery is only a tiny slice of the things he's made.

The difference between him and most of the other makers is that he's retired, so he's accessible (whereas he wouldn't have been up to about 7 or 8 years ago).

The other thing that's helpful for us amateur dopes is that he has a superb sense of classical design and nothing that he makes comes out "sort of funky".

I bring him up all the time because I'm not aware of anyone similar to him - I certainly would never be able to make 95% of the stuff he does. That's life, and it doesn't bother me, but I sure do appreciate being able to get legitimate advice from him rather than bro-design from the forums.